Va. House delegation protects itself

Members of Virginia’s House delegation unanimously agreed to a redistricting plan that will protect all of their seats and strengthen the three GOP freshmen who ousted Democratic incumbents last November, POLITICO has learned.

The new map, according to multiple sources in both parties who are familiar with the plan, was crafted in the past month chiefly by Virginia’s eight GOP members. But it has received crucial private support from the state’s three House Democrats — notably Rep. Gerry Connolly, who barely survived reelection last November and whose Capitol Beltway-area district would get a Democratic bump.

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The delegation is hoping for legislative approval in three weeks when the politically divided General Assembly convenes a special session.

“It’s an incumbent plan, not a Republican plan,” said former GOP Rep. Tom Davis, who retired as Connolly’s predecessor in 2008. “Republicans have locked in their eight seats. Democrats get Connolly’s seat.”

The incumbent-protection scheme clearly serves Republican interests, though at the cost of weakening the party’s hand in defeating Connolly in Democratic-leaning Northern Virginia, where population growth has made it more difficult for the GOP to defeat him in any case.

The map also reflects the balance of power in Richmond — where Democrats retain leverage with their 22-18 control of the Senate and Republicans have a solid majority in the House of Delegates and easily won the governor’s office with Bob McDonnell in 2009.

In a state where Democrats held six of 11 House seats in 2000 as well as a year ago — and in which Barack Obama won 53 percent to 46 percent in the 2008 presidential election — the bipartisan deal is a win for House Republicans as they seek to secure their new majority in Congress.

“Taking these seats off the table makes control of the House stronger for them,” Davis said.

“It will be an 8-3 delegation for 10 years,” said a Virginia GOP insider familiar with the new map.

The plan also reflects the influence of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), whose longtime political adviser, Ray Allen, coordinated the internal Republican negotiations along with Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), said the GOP insider. “It’s been a relatively harmonious operation. ... The work on the district lines started when the Census Bureau numbers on Virginia came out. Since then, it’s been a fast and furious five weeks.”

A Cantor spokesman would not comment on the congressman’s redistricting role, but his national clout — and his local influence in helping to elect the GOP newcomers last year — gave him leverage in controlling the map drawing.

With the districts of freshman Reps. Morgan Griffith and Robert Hurt along the state’s southern border and Rep. Scott Rigell in the Tidewater area lagging Virginia’s overall population growth, their Republican-held districts needed to add population to get to the ideal size.

As a result, the districts will expand to the north under the proposed map. The changes to the seats are not dramatic: The GOP vote in each would increase by less than 3 percentage points, a reflection of both the limited options in Virginia’s political geography and the party’s confidence that hard work by the new lawmakers will make them safe for reelection.